The Curator
The Curator is an Arcane Guardian boss in the Menagerie in Karazhan. It is not optional. Raids wanting to reach the bosses behind it must first defeat The Curator. The encounter is not difficult to learn, but requires good gear. A raid able to defeat this boss is in principle equipped well enough to defeat all the following bosses, save perhaps Nightbane and Prince Malchezaar. Abilities *About 660,000 HP, high armor *Immune to arcane spells, bleed and poison effects, and mana drain spells. *'Basic Melee': Around 3000 on a tank *Summons Astral Flares http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=17096 with ~12000 HP. These use a rapid-fire chain lightning style attack which hits up to three characters within ten yards for 675-825 arcane damage each. They can be tanked but are immune to taunts, stuns and snares. *'Hateful Bolt' http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=30383 - An arcane bolt that hits semi-randomly for 4435-5999 Arcane damage. *'Evocation' - When the Curator runs out of mana, it ceases all attacks and evocates for 20 seconds to restore its mana to full. Attacks on The Curator cause 200% normal damage during this time. *'Enrage' - At 15% melee damage and Hateful Bolt rate both are increased slightly and no more Astral Flares or Evocates occur. *'Berserk' - After 10 minutes it will berserk, giving all raid members an unremovable debuff which increases arcane damage taken by 500%. Strategy The fight against the Curator is basically a gear check. It's not a coincidence that this boss drops the first class set tokens - they really want to be earned. There's not much strategy or room for fancy manoeuvers - either the raid does have the required DPS and the necessary mana endurance, or it has not. This is a fight where consumables can really help, particularly mana regeneration buffs are important. The fight basically consists of two alternating phases: a Flare Phase, which lasts 100 seconds followed by an Evocation Phase, which lasts 20 seconds. Once the Curator's hit points drop below 15% it will stop summoning flares or evocating and increase its damage output slightly. 10 minutes after the pull it will go Berserk and wipe the raid in a few seconds. Positioning The melee group sets up around the Curator. Ranged damage dealers and healers can either set up distributed, with 10 yards distance between players, or concentrated, on one spot. Both methods to set up have advantages and disadvantages: Distributed: *reduces damage from the Flares (their chain lighting does not jump farther than 10 yards) *increases targeting time, each flare will follow a different path *bears the danger of some members being out of healer range Concentrated: *maximizes Flare damage (each of their lightings will hit three targets) *simplifies targeting and flare tanking because all flares will follow the same path Flare Phase During this phase, the Curator will continuously deal moderate melee damage against the main tank and summon an Astral Flare every 10 seconds for which it will spend 10% of its total mana. The Flare will initially aggro a random player and start advancing into his direction, dealing out Arcing Sear (a chain-lightning-like attack) on up to three players in its vicinity for about 700-800 arcane damage per target per second. The Flares come with an initial threat threshold on their first chosen target, so it is rather difficult (but also unnecessary) to tank them away from the raid. The most important aspect of this fight is to kill each Flare before the next one spawns. This is the key, the only thing to keep in mind - Flares must die quickly. Damaging the Curator in a Flare Phase is entirely optional, and it's ok to do so, but only after the current Flare is dead. If multiple Flares are around, they will quickly exceed the healers' capability of keeping the raid alive. Threat is not an issue, so everyone can use their highest DPS abilities. The Curator will also cast a Hateful Bolt every 10 to 15 seconds on a player, but never on its current target. The chance for a player of becoming the victim of a Hateful Bolt is influenced by the players' current health level and his position on the Curator's threat table. This can be utilized by a raid that designates one player - preferably a warlock with a high health pool or a shadow priest - as a soaker for most of the Hateful Bolts by having him constantly keep up some DoT effects on the Curator. Equipping this player with arcane resistance gear negates a substantial amount of the damage from the Hateful Bolts, making the fight somewhat easier and mana-preserving for the healers. It is important to keep the bolt tank healed, as the Curator doesn't appear to bolt targets which would die from the bolt target alone, instead picking the next on the list. Note that using a Hateful Bolt soaker is reasonable only when the raid is otherwise still capable of killing the Flares fast enough. It's typically done when using only two healers. Warlocks can cast Curse of Doom somewhere between the summoning of the 4th and 6th Astral Flare which makes certain it will go off during the Curator's vulnerable Evocation Phase. Evocation Phase Immediately after the Curator summons the 10th Astral Flare with the last of its mana, it will enter a state of Evocation for 20 seconds in which it will refill its mana. While it does so, it will go completely inactive and all damage dealt against it will be tripled. The raid should first concentrate on killing the 10th and last Flare before switching damage over to the Curator, since this Flare still ought to be killed before the Evocation phase ends - and killing it early means granting your healers a few seconds break for normal mana regeneration. Cooldown and single-use abilities that temporarily increase damage output should be saved up for this moment and be activated at the beginning of the phase to quickly kill the last Astral Flare and to make the most out of the Curator's temporary vulnerability. Once the Curator has finished refilling mana, the fight will continue normally with the next Flare Phase (or the Rage Phase, if its health was brought down below 15% during Evocation). Rage Phase Once the Curator's hit point level drops below 15%, it will stop summoning Astral Flares and increase melee damage output and Hateful Bolts frequency. This simply means for the healers to give the main tank and the victims of the Hateful Bolt more attention while everyone else just nukes down the remaining hit points of the Curator. Miscellaneous Facts and Hints * If there are several hunters, they shouldn't stand too close together to avoid both being forced into melee combat if an Astral Flare comes their way. They can use their pets' Growl ability to pin the Flares in place. * If there are melee damage-dealers in the raid, it may be helpful to have everyone but the tank and hunters stand close together so the melees won't have to waste too much time with running between Astral Flares. * While it's tempting to use arcane resistance gear, it tends slow down Flare-killing. It's somewhat useful on the tank and any Hateful Bolt soaker, but generally harmful on other characters. * The current best theory on Hateful Bolt targeting is that it ignores the tank and anyone without enough health to survive it, but otherwise hits whoever has generated the most threat since the last Evocation. * The following simple macro is handy to help damage-dealers target live Astral Flares quickly: /target Astral Flare /stopmacro harm /target The Curator Quotes Aggro: 'The Menagerie is for guests only.' Adds Spawn: 'This curator is equipped for gallery protection.' 'Gallery rules will be strictly enforced.' Evocate: 'Your request cannot be processed.' Enrage: 'Failure to comply will result in offensive action.' Player death: 'You are not a guest.' 'Do not touch the displays.' Death: 'Curator is no longer op... er... ation... al.' Loot Patches and Hotfixes External links Category:Arcane Guardians Category:Bosses Category:Instance:Karazhan Category:Unique Voice